![]() It's like Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter grew the perfect golden pumpkin and had no idea how to do it again. But when the album version finally dropped - and, later, Daft Punk's 10:30 remix - the DJs didn't fulfill the imaginary. As much as I love the radio edit, it feels like an even finer version is promised by it - a sunrise or sunset, a breakdown, a vocoded freakout, something to do with those weebly closing synths. a song so good that Daft Punk themselves don't seem to have been able to keep a handle on it. A song so good that it eclipses Pharrell Williams' dire verses, that it eclipses an otherwise mediocre album. Ubiquitous from April on, the world seemed keen to hail it, to have another tune for the bar mitzvahs and wedding DJs, an antidote to gaudier (terrible) new standards like "Gangnam Style" or "I Gotta Feeling". Sequinned soft-funk, easy and feel-good, strafed by pinlights, girded by Nile Rodgers - one of those tunes that seems incontrovertible. In 2013 there was no other song so universally hailed, so instantly embraced, as Daft Punk's "Get Lucky". And more than the poetry, the arrangement, the production, Houck found a song - a hook, a verse/chorus/verse, a pinecone in the dirt - that the most storied popular music songwriters, Cash & Simon & McCartney, all of them - would trade some starlight to hold. Working with his band - especially Bobby Hawk on fiddle and Ricky Ray Jackson on pedal steel - he makes a sound that feels astonishingly fresh, new & young, but also so timeless, grounded in a tradition. Matthew Houck writes so beautifully of faded love, of ever-after, in a way that feels neither precious nor obscure. This is the one that felt like a fortune, an inheritance, something you could live on, in a little house, in the country. This was the song, in 2013, that people turned to me to ask, "What is this?" This was the song that grew more marvelous with every single listen. If you like what I do here - and after you've paid for the music you've discovered - I hope you'll consider picking it up. It's a book full of love, electricity, music and espionage - plus a little kung-fu. It's called Us Conductors and it tells a story about Lev Sergeyvich Termen, inventor of the theremin, and Clara Rockmore, the theremin's greatest player. One last thing: my debut novel is out in spring 2014. For example works by CHVRCHES, Jessie Ware, MIA and Karneef. Some songs that you heard in 2013 may have been omitted from this tally because I heard them before this year, and included them in my Best of 2012. But if you want full-length records that are the best, the best, these were my twelve in 2013: Haim's Days Are Gone, Leif Vollebekk's North Americana, Yo La Tengo's Fade, Frog Eyes' Carey's Cold Spring, Young Galaxy's Ultramarine, J Cole's Born Sinner, Sarah Neufeld's Hero Brother, Michael Feuerstack's Tambourine Death Bed, CHVRCHES' The Bones of What You Believe, Tim Hecker's Virgins, Basia Bulat's Tall Tall Shadow and, Beyoncé's BEYONCÉ. Songs and LPs are entirely different creatures. My favourite songs of the year do not necessarily speak to my favourite albums of the year. ![]() This is the way it worked out it certainly ain't perfect. 42 acts are mostly American, 29 are Canadian, 12 are British, 4 are Australian, two each from France, Mali, South Korea and Sweden, and there is one Mexican, one South African, one Japanese, one Ghanaian and one Syrian. Of these 100 songs, approximately 62 are fronted by men, 38 by women. If this is your first time here, I hope you'll bookmark us or subscribe via RSS. We post new songs and old songs, write clumsy dreams of what we hear. ![]() We don't mess about with tour-dates, videos or advertising. We try to do just two things, well: finding good songs, and writing about them. Said the Gramophone is one of the oldest musicblogs. (mirror a part 1 2 3 / mirror b part 1 2 3 / mirror c part 1 2 3 / mirror d part 1 2 3) You can also download the complete 100 songs, in three parts: The things you like you can then download by right- or ctrl-clicking with your mouse. The best way to browse this list is to click the little arrow beside each song and then to listen as you read. I follow just one arbitrary rule: that no artist may be listed twice. ![]() These are my 100 favourite songs of 2013: songs I love more than as much as day-hikes & shave ice & sudden breakdance breakouts. Please note: MP3s are only kept online for a short time, and if this entry is from more than a couple of weeks ago, the music probably won't be available to download any more. ![]()
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